In 2009, I became extremely concerned with the concept of Unique Identity for various reasons. Connected with many like minded highly educated people who were all concerned.
On 18th May 2010, I started this Blog to capture anything and everything I came across on the topic. This blog with its million hits is a testament to my concerns about loss of privacy and fear of the ID being misused and possible Criminal activities it could lead to.
In 2017 the Supreme Court of India gave its verdict after one of the longest hearings on any issue. I did my bit and appealed to the Supreme Court Judges too through an On Line Petition.
In 2019 the Aadhaar Legislation has been revised and passed by the two houses of the Parliament of India making it Legal. I am no Legal Eagle so my Opinion carries no weight except with people opposed to the very concept.
In 2019, this Blog now just captures on a Daily Basis list of Articles Published on anything to do with Aadhaar as obtained from Daily Google Searches and nothing more. Cannot burn the midnight candle any longer.
"In Matters of Conscience, the Law of Majority has no place"- Mahatma Gandhi
Ram Krishnaswamy
Sydney, Australia.

Aadhaar

The UIDAI has taken two successive governments in India and the entire world for a ride. It identifies nothing. It is not unique. The entire UID data has never been verified and audited. The UID cannot be used for governance, financial databases or anything. It’s use is the biggest threat to national security since independence. – Anupam Saraph 2018

When I opposed Aadhaar in 2010 , I was called a BJP stooge. In 2016 I am still opposing Aadhaar for the same reasons and I am told I am a Congress die hard. No one wants to see why I oppose Aadhaar as it is too difficult. Plus Aadhaar is FREE so why not get one ? Ram Krishnaswamy

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.-Mahatma Gandhi

In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.Mahatma Gandhi

“The invasion of privacy is of no consequence because privacy is not a fundamental right and has no meaning under Article 21. The right to privacy is not a guaranteed under the constitution, because privacy is not a fundamental right.” Article 21 of the Indian constitution refers to the right to life and liberty -Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi

“There is merit in the complaints. You are unwittingly allowing snooping, harassment and commercial exploitation. The information about an individual obtained by the UIDAI while issuing an Aadhaar card shall not be used for any other purpose, save as above, except as may be directed by a court for the purpose of criminal investigation.”-A three judge bench headed by Justice J Chelameswar said in an interim order.

Legal scholar Usha Ramanathan describes UID as an inverse of sunshine laws like the Right to Information. While the RTI makes the state transparent to the citizen, the UID does the inverse: it makes the citizen transparent to the state, she says.

Good idea gone bad
I have written earlier that UID/Aadhaar was a poorly designed, unreliable and expensive solution to the really good idea of providing national identification for over a billion Indians. My petition contends that UID in its current form violates the right to privacy of a citizen, guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution. This is because sensitive biometric and demographic information of citizens are with enrolment agencies, registrars and sub-registrars who have no legal liability for any misuse of this data. This petition has opened up the larger discussion on privacy rights for Indians. The current Article 21 interpretation by the Supreme Court was done decades ago, before the advent of internet and today’s technology and all the new privacy challenges that have arisen as a consequence.

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, MP Rajya Sabha

“What is Aadhaar? There is enormous confusion. That Aadhaar will identify people who are entitled for subsidy. No. Aadhaar doesn’t determine who is eligible and who isn’t,” Jairam Ramesh

But Aadhaar has been mythologised during the previous government by its creators into some technology super force that will transform governance in a miraculous manner. I even read an article recently that compared Aadhaar to some revolution and quoted a 1930s historian, Will Durant.Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Rajya Sabha MP

“I know you will say that it is not mandatory. But, it is compulsorily mandatorily voluntary,” Jairam Ramesh, Rajya Saba April 2017.

August 24, 2017: The nine-judge Constitution Bench rules that right to privacy is “intrinsic to life and liberty”and is inherently protected under the various fundamental freedoms enshrined under Part III of the Indian Constitution

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the World; indeed it's the only thing that ever has"

“Arguing that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say.” -Edward Snowden

In the Supreme Court, Meenakshi Arora, one of the senior counsel in the case, compared it to living under a general, perpetual, nation-wide criminal warrant.

Had never thought of it that way, but living in the Aadhaar universe is like living in a prison. All of us are treated like criminals with barely any rights or recourse and gatekeepers have absolute power on you and your life.

Announcing the launch of the # BreakAadhaarChainscampaign, culminating with events in multiple cities on 12th Jan. This is the last opportunity to make your voice heard before the Supreme Court hearings start on 17th Jan 2018. In collaboration with @no2uidand@rozi_roti.

UIDAI's security seems to be founded on four time tested pillars of security idiocy

1) Denial

2) Issue fiats and point finger

3) Shoot messenger

4) Bury head in sand.

God Save India

Monday, September 12, 2016

10413 - Biometric ATMs ride in on Aadhaar - Indian Express

Biometric ATMs ride in on Aadhaar
By Jonathan Ananda
Published: 11th September 2016 05:25 AM

CHENNAI: A few years ago, biometric ATMs were something that excited imaginations. Money with just a fingerprint? An iris scan? No hassles of PINs and passwords? The idea was an instant hit. But the years following saw the fervour die down a bit. Banks weren’t as quick in rolling out biometrically enabled teller machines.

That has changed in the last few months, with bank after bank introducing pilots, in the case of DCB Bank an official launch, of biometrically enabled cash machines in select areas. The vital change in banks’ willingness to finally rollout something that they have been infrastructurally capable of for years has been spurred by one single factor — Aadhaar. The biometric footprint of lakhs of Indians provided by UIDAI has finally given banks the wherewithal to enable biometrics in their last mile cash delivery platforms.


“Quite frankly, it was never a priority for us (public sector banks) because of the other challenges we were struggling with,” pointed out a senior bank official in a nationalised bank. “Collecting biometric information from customers would have involved a lot of human resources, those we couldn’t spare. Aadhaar has solved that particular problem,” he added.

It is not just distracted PSBs that were waiting for a readily available database. Private banks like Axis Bank, which are rolling out pilots in several areas, were doing the same thing.
“Earlier, we had to create our own biometric footprint. Now that everyone has one available over a simple API call, it makes sense for us to bring in biometrics,” said Amit Sethi, Chief Information Officer, Axis Bank.
In fact, Sethi says that all new ATMs that Axis will install in the next year might well come biometrically enabled.
“We are already running a pilot and we will launch it officially very soon,” he admitted.

DCB Bank’s Managing Director & CEO, Murali M. Natrajan agrees that Aadhaar has been a game changer, The bank has launched what it claims is the India’s first Aadhaar based ATM. Which accepts customer’s Aadhaar number and fingerprint (biometric) impression in addition to the usual debit card.
“The Aadhaar linked ATM transaction has enabled customers use their Aadhaar number and fingerprint details instead of the Debit or ATM Card PIN. The user either can key-in the 12-digit Aadhaar number or use the Debit or ATM Card (ATM) to start a transaction. At the stage of confirming the identity the customer simply puts any finger on the scanner rather than the PIN,” Natrajan pointed out.
But banks like Axis and HDFC have already rolled out a version of biometrics in their micro ATM initiatives. HDFC announced the measure early last year. Sethi says Axis has a large number of micro ATMs in rural geographies that do everything, including disburse instant loans through biometric verification.
But biometrics, while ‘cool’ was a bit of an overkill when it was just cash that was being disbursed through ATMs. “But ATMs do a lot more now. They do KYC work, they disburse loans, there are so many use cases. It makes a lot of sense integrating biometrics with them now,” pointed out Sethi.
Another factor pushing banks is that fact that technological differentiation is steadily becoming a vital aspect of how customers move to and from banks.
“Twenty new banks are coming in now. And a lot of these are going to be using technology to differentiate — in user experience, cost of operations etc,” said Navroze Dastur, Managing Director, NCR Corporation India.
NCR is one of the largest ATM manufacturers in the world and has a 48 per cent market share o the ATM market in India.
The rollout of biometrics is not just confined to ATMs. ICICI Bank has introduced an over the phone voice verification feature for customers and Standard Chartered meanwhile announced the rollout of a host of biometric capabilities for Asia, Africa and the Middle East. The ‘Touch in’ feature is already live in India.
The age of biometrics is here. And ATMs are riding the crest of the wave. What has made this possible, however, is Aadhaar.
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